The invention is directed to a mounting assembly for a machine tool carriage driven by linear motors on both sides of the machine tool.
A machine tool of the type which uses sliding carriages guided on rails on the machine tool frame is driven on both ends by linear motors. The sliding carriages work together to perform relative motion to one another as workpiece carriers as is known in German Patent 4307482 A1. Each sliding carriage is guided on a pair of parallel spaced main rails. The linear motors are mounted on both sides of the sliding carriage and turned 90.degree. laterally to the rails. Generally, the motors are mounted on a slide on one side and with an additional guide on the other side. Compensation of stresses and torsional forces is not provided by the slide mounting.
In German Patent 24 12 769 entitled "Column Guide for the Press Plate of a Press", it is known that a small bearing clearance can be achieved by guiding the press plate with bearing pairs on flattened surfaces on the columns so that the bearing pairs only are associated with two columns lying beside one another. Only a single bearing is associated with a further column, so that, of the six degrees of freedom of the press plate intended as a fixed body, five are guides. By this reduction of the guiding bearings from eight to five, the kinetic redundance in determination is eliminated and guidance independently of stresses and dangerous torques is achieved. However, application of the principle for the protection of linear motors running on rails from stresses or dangerous torques in a machine tool carriage as well as from accidental damage to the machine tool carriage appears to be only conditionally possible.
Therefore the object of the invention is to provide a novel mounting for a machine tool carriage driven by linear motors on both sides on fixed rails to compensate for stresses and torques on the machine tool carriage.